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Friday, June 25, 2010

DEVOTION: Guided Missile Prayers. (Gerald McCann)

Read: 2 Corinthians 10: 1-6

The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. James 5:16 NIV

In today’s warfare, guided missiles are highly sophisticated. Fired from aircraft flying at high altitude, the missiles carry a camera in the nose-cone which hones in on the target with frightening precision, guiding the missile right onto its target. Once the target is known, its destruction is a virtual certainty.

The Lord recently used the parable of the guided missile to teach me about the power of prayer when believers are in a spiritual warfare situation. We do not always know the precise location or identity of our enemy or what war-head our prayer missiles should carry, but God does. So, when a child of God prays an effective, fervent prayer, his prayer becomes a divinely guided missile, with one major difference. The prayer missile is directed towards God, in the Name of Jesus, for His redirection.

Guided missiles are not simply fired at random in the hope of hitting a target. In the same way, we need to send our missile prayers to God with a definite target in mind. It may be an individual or a group that is planning evil. We may even suggest the ‘warhead’ we would like to use for arming our missile. David, in the Psalms, did this, but with some pretty mean ‘warheads,’ which are not to be recommended!

The Bible has a strange ‘warhead’ which we are commanded to use against our enemy. It is what I call ‘The Lost Chord of Blessing.’ We are told to bless our enemies and those that purpose evil against us. But what is the most powerful ‘warhead’ blessing that we can mount on our prayer missiles? It is to bless our enemies with the “Fear of the Lord” which is ‘the beginning of wisdom’ (Proverbs 1).. For an example of this, read the story of the Prophet Jonah. Even though Jonah knew nothing about blessing his enemies with the “Fear of the Lord,” this is precisely what God did. The Fear of the Lord will either cause our enemies to tremble with fear before God, fall down in repentance and cry out to God for mercy, or they will turn their back on God, receiving the consequences of fearsome judgment. The citizens of Nineveh did the former, from the King downwards, saving a whole city – a whole generation – from the terrible wrath of God. Jonah’s heart-planned ‘warhead’ was that God would wipe our the terrible Ninehvites.

In heaven God re-programs in the precise location of the enemy then arms the warhead with His divine weapons. From the high altitude of heaven God re-directs the now-armed missile precisely onto His known target, fulfilling His divine purposes. Remember, the weapons of our warfare are not human or worldly, but spiritual.

Prayer focus: For those known to you who are in the firing line of the enemy’s attacks.

Gerald McCann is a retired pastor and author, living in Bot River, near Cape Town, South Africa. In parts of the country many Christians on outlying farms are under attack, with whole families sometimes being brutally murdered.